As a teenager from a small town in rural Wisconsin, I grew up with what I thought were very big dreams. I fell asleep watching National Geographic documentaries and dreamt of exploring every National Park the United States has to offer.

I have always wanted to see every corner of this beautiful planet, and I still do. However, if our National Park System is dismantled, this will prove difficult. 

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. According to The Guardian, this week, the Trump Administration announced large-scale funding cuts to both the National Park Service and the United States Forest Service. 

As of now, these cuts terminate government employees who are on probationary contracts. This could mean they are a newly hired employee or recently promoted in the past year. 

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The initial push to roll back federal spending has cost 1,000 NPS and 3,500 USFS employees their jobs. 

According to one of the affected National Park Service Employees, Alex Wild, he and other former government employees were met with an abrupt message terminating their positions. 

“The department determined that you have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills and abilities do not meet the department’s current needs.” 

Wild took to Instagram to speak on the issue earlier this week and said that he was eight months into his one-year probationary position as a park ranger, and the only staff on-site with EMT and first-responder qualifications. 

The consequences of these federal spending cuts are far and wide, and coming just a week after federal grants were paused. 

The pausing of federal funds, which is now under review, has brought concern surrounding necessary wildfire prevention work done by non-profits. These organizations are funded by grants that are on the chopping block under the Trump Administration. 

The pausing of federal funds doesn’t include thousands of grants that are under review after enacting an executive order to end “radical and wasteful government Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity programs and preferencing.”

Not to be dramatic, but the future of science is on the line here. National Science Foundation grants, funding research across the nation, face scrutiny. 

Regardless of your political stance, DEI programs go far beyond preferencing in the workplace. This fall, I had the opportunity to conduct undergraduate research testing private wells across Eau Claire County.

The focus of this project is to give private well owners who are not ensured clean water by the EPA the opportunity to learn more about their water quality. 

This project was funded by an NSF grant that focused on DEI, bringing water quality research to populations that are marginally uninsured clean water by the federal government.

The grant has since concluded before the Trump Administration was inaugurated, but had it not, this project would be facing cuts. Right here in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. 

The reality of all of this is that it is easy to ignore wildfire mitigation defunding, all the way in Oregon. It is easy to feel bad for NPS employees and then go about your day because it doesn’t affect you. But it does. 

The defunding of these grants and positions sends a clear message: economic success takes precedence over our natural world. 

For the little girl who grew up in rural Wisconsin, dreaming of those National Geographic documentaries, this is devastating. But it isn’t a black-and-white issue. There isn’t a perfect world where we stop taking from our Earth and society continues as we know it. 

Coupled with funding cuts, President Trump has persistently expressed support for a campaign nicknamed “Drill Baby Drill,” which certainly has conservationists, scientists and outdoor enthusiasts on edge across the world. 

The thing is, we need oil. We rely on it as a society to heat our homes during Wisconsin winter, create plastic products and fuel our cars. 

And, as much as I would love to say that we need to flip the switch and stop relying on fossil fuels to sustain our staggering energy consumption, it simply isn’t that easy. 

The transition to clean energy is a balancing act, and we haven’t even tried to unpackage the scale yet. 

In fact, the future of our society and the transition to clean energy requires that we invest in our Earth’s resources. The minerals that allow you to turn on your bedside lamp in the morning, that make wind turbines generate energy and that go into every solar panel are mined. 

But while the future of our society depends on these resources, the conservation of the areas they exist in is just as important. 

No matter who you are, or the weight you place on our natural environment, you are a visitor on this Earth. It does not belong to either political party or any country, and it is certainly not ours over any other species. 

Schoenemann can be reached at schoence8370@uwec.edu.